Parental awareness of dental caries in toddlers

The purpose of the study was to investigate if parents of toddlers could be taught how to discover dental caries in their children and, if carious lesions were found, contact the the child's dentist. The study was designed as a prospective study, starting with 671 children aged one year. Children examined and caries-free at one year of age were divided into two groups, an experimental and a control group. In connection with the clinical examination, the parents of the children in the experimental group were trained using a colour photo to recognize the first sign of initial dental caries on buccal surfaces of upper incisors and encouraged to contact the dentist as soon as they discovered caries in the teeth of their children. Eighteen parents contacted the dentist when the children were between one and three years of age, but none due to carious lesions. The children in the control group were re-examined at two years of age. About eight per cent of the children in the control group had manifest or initial caries at that age, predominantely in the upper incisors. At three years of age 27 per cent of the children in both the experimental and control group had detectable caries. This study has clearly shown that parents are not able to diagnose caries in their toddlers-at least they are not able to seek advice or dental treatment.